WASHINGTON – The Homeland Security Department’s former independent watchdog says he was twice summoned to then-Secretary Tom Ridge’s office last year and asked why his reports criticizing the agency were being sent to Congress and whether they could be presented more favorably to the department.

Mr. Ridge “was trying to get me not to give things to Congress and also to try to spin reports in a way most favorable to the department, and I resisted both of those,” former Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin said in an interview.

In a statement, Mr. Ridge said: “I did not always agree with the tactics, interpretations, conclusions, or recommendations of the inspector general. At no time, however, did I ever ask him to suppress or withhold a specific report.

Mr. Ervin’s statements are “untrue and deserve no further comment,” said Mr. Ridge, who left as secretary last month.

The Associated Press approached Mr. Ervin about his meetings with Mr. Ridge after the dates turned up on Mr. Ridge’s daily appointment calendars, which the AP obtained last month under the Freedom of Information Act.

The AP first requested the calendars in December 2003. The department finally released them last month, three days after Mr. Ridge left office.

Mr. Ervin was the department’s first inspector general. As the agency’s legally independent watchdog, he wrote several reports taking issue with department spending and citing other problems with the Bush administration’s efforts to protect the country.

He left his job at the end of December. The Senate never voted on his nomination during his time as IG and the administration chose not to reappoint him.

Mr. Ervin said the two meetings with Mr. Ridge in June and September of 2004 were his lone one-on-one contacts with the secretary.

Congress created the federal system of inspectors general in response to the Watergate scandal. The intent was to free these officials from political pressure so they could aggressively oversee Cabinet agencies’ programs.

Mr. Ervin’s periodic criticism of Homeland Security programs was a discordant note amid a chorus of praise by the administration for the president’s leadership in the fight against terrorism, the central theme of his successful re-election campaign.

In an earlier interview this year, Mr. Ervin said senior agency officials had at times urged him not to release some of his critical reports, but that Mr. Ridge never ordered him to do something.

“To his credit, the secretary never did that,” Mr. Ervin told CNN.